


A Little Spice & Oil Leads You Right to the Heart

by Arewegroot



Category: Naruto
Genre: Food as a Metaphor for Love, Gen, Team as Family, maybe? i dont know what to tag here
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-30
Updated: 2020-03-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:34:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23386057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arewegroot/pseuds/Arewegroot
Summary: As someone who grew up without a family and having something to eat never being a sure thing, food gains a major significant meaning.OR 5 times Naruto showed his love by cooking for someone + where he learned it from
Relationships: Gaara & Uzumaki Naruto, Haruno Sakura & Uzumaki Naruto, Hatake Kakashi & Uzumaki Naruto, Rock Lee & Uzumaki Naruto, Uchiha Sasuke & Uzumaki Naruto, Umino Iruka & Uzumaki Naruto
Comments: 3
Kudos: 78





	A Little Spice & Oil Leads You Right to the Heart

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally made for the shinobi summer fest on Tumblr and since we're all in quarantine I decided to actually go ahead and make it a 5+ fic like I had originally planned to.

It’s been two years since the fourth great shinobi war had ended and two years since every shinobi village joined forces in a shaky sort of treaty to save everything they knew. Easy to say, they won, and now they were living in a time of ultimate peace. Or that’s what each village liked to preach to their ninja and civilians, but Kakashi knew better. Relations were still tense with the other hidden villages, each believing that Konoha was to blame for the war. Which Kakashi couldn’t fault them for, seeing as the perpetrators were Konoha nin. Kakashi will forever be grateful for his younger self reading up on politics. It has been a helpful skill since he found himself becoming Hokage. The Hokage needed to learn the sleazy tricks that are politics to make sure everything was for the village.

“Hey Kaka-sensei, do you have a mission for me?”

That’s the reason why Naruto found himself standing in front of his old sensei.

“Yes,” The Hokage said as he kept his eyes on his paperwork. “you could say that.”

An excited grin started to grow on Naruto’s face. The young hero had finally managed to gain the title of Jonin, and now Naruto was finally able to go out on mission all on his own. 

“Awesome! What do you have for me, sensei? Do I have to save someone from missing nins? Ooo is it Sasuke?”

“Not exactly.”

Naruto’s former sensei looked up from his paperwork, and now that Naruto could see Kakashi clearly, Naruto noticed that he looked tired. To be fair, Kakashi has always looked tired, but lately, the man has started to look like he was ready to drop at any minute with his darker than usual bags under his eyes. The Hokage snuggie the man has become known to wear wasn’t helping him look any less tired.

“This is more of a lesson disguised as a mission.” Kakashi continued to explain, and immediately Naruto stood up straighter but kept his disappointed pout. “As I’ve explained to you before relations with the other villages are fragile at best, and it is the Hokage’s job to make sure those relations don’t crumble into war. That is why I think your first experience with foreign relations should be during the Kazekage’s visit.”

Naruto’s disappointed pout quickly changed to a genuinely happy grin. “Gaara’s coming over?”

The thought of seeing Gaara again after so long made warm excitement go through his body. Kakashi-sensei’s “Hokage lessons” were usually incredibly annoying, so the fact that Naruto was going to be able to see his friend with this lesson placed it high on his list. 

“Along with his siblings,” Kakashi confirmed. “I thought this would be a safe way for you to test out the waters since you and Gaara are good friends. There shouldn’t be any major accidents that would lead to strained relations.”

“So what do you want me to do, exactly?” 

“Well, first I want you to read these.” Kakashi reached into one of his many drawers and a couple of books and let it fall onto the desk with a thump that caused a loud groan to come from the younger man. “Then secondly I want to put you in charge of where we’ll be having this meeting.”

“Why don’t we just have it here?” Naruto asked as he moved and gathered up the books into his arms. 

“We usually would have them here, in this office,” Kakashi said. “But since we’re on good terms with Sunagakure there shouldn’t be any misinterpretation of ill intentions where we have this meeting. So, we have more room to where and how we can have this meeting.”

Naruto squinted his eyes to show that he was still not getting where Kakashi was going with this. The boy was a war hero that managed to save the entire world, but Kakashi was happy to find that he was still somewhat that airheaded boy. “And that means…?”

“It means that I think it would be a nice sign of friendship if we had the meeting over a wonderful meal that just happened to be cooked by the current Hokage’s student.”

Naruto’s eyes lit up with comprehension and let out a loud “oh” to go along with it. 

“Do you think you could handle that?” Kakashi asked, keeping his proud smirk hidden under his mask when Naruto stood up taller and gave him a grin that was filled with self-confidence. 

“Absolutely!”

—

Naruto found that his assignment to be a lot harder than he thought it would be and it was all because the whole village had decided to go to the market on the same day. Naruto has been waiting for about an hour in this butcher’s shop for his turn to order the meat he needs. The store was packed to the brim with other customers and bored little kids that were dragged along to this grocery run. The large neon signs the store used to show they were open for business was blinking in quick succession. 

Luckily Naruto had been smart enough to buy all the none meat ingredients he needed for the dishes earlier this morning. Naruto had also been smart enough to grab one of the reading assignments he had gotten from Kakashi. Although, as the line in front of him didn’t shorten and as Naruto was starting to get closer to the end, Naruto was beginning to realize he probably should have grabbed the thicker book.

It took him another half an hour before he managed to buy the ground beef and beef tongue. 

—

Naruto woke up with the rising sun and rushed over to the mansion that foreign leaders and politicians so he could start getting all three dishes ready before Gaara and his siblings arrived. 

Naruto first started on the beef tongue. He had made sure to bring his slow cooker so he would be able to let the tongue cook without worry as he prepared the rest of the dishes. Once Naruto had filled the slow cooker with water, spices, and the beef tongue, he sealed it up and moved on. 

Naruto moved on to the pot of kombu he left soaking overnight. He placed the pot on the huge stove that was in the mansion’s kitchen and started to boil it once he had taken out all the kombu out. Then as Naruto was leaving the mushrooms to soak and the tofu to drain, he started to put konnyku pieces to boil. He kept an eye on them until it was the right time to remove them and set them aside. It didn’t take long until he combined all the chop veggies with the kombu water and all the other ingredients. He let it simmer for a minute or two before he finally turned the fire off. 

It was still early in the day for when the meeting with Suna was scheduled so Naruto took a small break and continued to finish up on the last bit of reading he needed to feel ready for this diplomatic meeting. Naruto was great friends with Gaara and Kakashi, and the young Kazekage held mutual respect for one another, but Naruto couldn’t help but feel a little nervous. Naruto’s nerves seemed to disappear after he had gone back to cooking. The act always seemed to calm him down.

The last dish was Kankuro’s favorite dish. Naruto had just finished frying the chopped onion and cooking the broccoli and potatoes that he planned to be the dish’s sides when the Hokage arrived.

“Mm,” Kakashi moaned out after he had gotten a whiff of the aromas that danced around the kitchen. “smells great.”

Naruto grinned happily, his cheeks pink and his forehead sweaty from the labor that was cooking. “Thanks! Mind giving me a hand with peeling the tongue?”

The Hokage’s answer was the removal of his cloak and his fingerless gloves. After gaining Kakashi sensei’s help, it only took half the time than it would have to finish. With one last “thank you” to his old teacher, Naruto had enough time to run back home, clean up and get dressed. He had been ready to set up the table but was met with the sight of Kakashi doing it himself, much to Shikamaru’s chagrin.

“You’re the Hokage,” The young Nara nagged. “It’s not your job to do this. We could have hired some genin to do it.

“And disrespect Naruto’s hard work?”

In no time before pleasantries were traded, and the beginning of negotiations already discussed the rest of the meeting. The young hero found himself seated on one side of the dining table with the rest of Konoha’s representatives facing towards the Sand Siblings and other Suna representatives. Naruto was about to dig in and show a little love to his hard work when a subtle elbow jab from the Hokage reminded him of where he was.

With a soft clear of his throat, Naruto grabbed the attention of the whole table. He rose up from his chair before he started to recite the small speech the Hokage had implied would be a very diplomatic thing for Naruto to do.

"As a sign of our friendship, please enjoy.” Naruto finished off with a respectful bow before he sat back down.

“This tastes amazing!” Temari exclaimed, taking another spoon full of the soup.

“You can thank Naruto’s skill for that,” Kakashi proudly said as he dug into his bowl.

Gaara turned to give Naruto an astounished look. “You made this Naruto?”

“Oh uh yeah,” Naruto said, rubbing the back of his neck in embarrassment.

“It tastes amazing, Naruto,” Kankuro said. “But how did you know all of our favorites?”

“I asked Gaara once,” Naruto said. “Way back when we went to go help save Gaara.”

“And you remembered?” Gaara asked, feeling very touched that the blonde had bothered to remember such a trivial thing.

“Of course!” Naruto exclaimed, sounding as if it would have been weird if he hadn’t.

“This is really touching, Naruto and I don’t mean to sound rude,” Gaara said. “But why didn’t you hire someone else to make all this? I can’t imagine that it wasn’t tiring.”

“Well, because someone once taught me that cooking for someone was another way for you to show them how much you care and appreciate them. So it seemed wrong if I would leave this to someone else.”

Gaara was left speechless for a minute before he smiled happily at the blonde and the rest of the leaf ninja. Naruto never seems to stop amazing him.

“Well,” the Kazekage said. “I can speak the truth when I saw Suna is very grateful for the friendship we have found with Konoha and would happily work to keep it alive for many years to come.”


End file.
